Police on the transit system

Transfer Point, Metro Center
Originally uploaded by rllayman.

Steve PInkus alerts us to today's Post story, "Metro Has A Lesson For Unruly Students," subtitled "Effort Aims to Quell Surge in Bad Behavior," about WMATA launching an initiative to address often unruly adolescent behavior on the transit system. (In Southeast DC especially this has been violent, with buses being commandeered and windows broken out, etc.).

I experienced uncivil behavior--people screaming, whistlling inappropriately, and other acting out--from _adults_ a few weeks ago on the subway, sometime during the evening rush.

It made me think about the degradation of the New York City transit system in the 1970s and 1980s and into the early 1990s before the William Bratton era.

Probably, co-incident with the increase in ridership, WMATA needs to hire more transit police, and have more visible police presence more often on the trains throughout all day parts.

If there were a sense that decorum is required and that sanctions exist for bad behavior, people would be more civil, better behaved.

Letting the system degrade in this fashion is unacceptable.